abandonware games sorted by popularity

Fox Ranger is a side-scrolling shooter that wastes no time explaining itself—because lasers are self-explanatory. You pilot a sleek craft through swarms of enemies with the s...

Armour-Geddon is what you get when someone combines Wargames with a midlife crisis. Set in a post-nuke world where you pilot tanks, helicopters, and laser cannons to stop a doomsda...

Floor 13 hands you the keys to a shadowy government office and suggests you protect national stability by any means necessary. It’s part strategy, part moral dilemma, and ent...

Street Sports Soccer (1988, DOS) trades professional pitches for empty lots, with goalposts made of bricks and wild kids chasing glory. It’s messy, fast, and surprisingly end...

If pro wrestling in the '80s had a fever dream after drinking too much neon paint, it would be called Bop'N Wrestle (1988, DOS). You play as Gorgeous Greg, who’s about as gor...

Beats of Rage is what happens when fans of Streets of Rage decide to stop waiting for Sega and just build their own game—with a side of King of Fighters for flavor. This DOS ...

If Catacomb Abyss was “Doom for wizards,” then Catacomb Armageddon is “Doom with a Halloween costume budget.” Bigger levels, more enemies, and slightly more...

Into the Eagle's Nest from 1987 is a top-down action game where stealth and gunfire coexist in uneasy partnership. Players infiltrate enemy territory, rescue prisoners, and survive...

Universe, released in 1994, is an adventure game that leans heavily into its sci-fi setting, offering a world that feels both imaginative and slightly surreal. You’ll spend a lot...

Forget missiles—Blue Max: Aces of the Great War takes you back to when air combat meant leather helmets, canvas wings, and a healthy fear of gravity. Released in 1990 for DOS...

Fans of Dragonlance novels rejoiced at Dark Queen of Krynn, a Gold Box RPG where you battle alongside iconic heroes in a desperate fight against Takhisis, the dark goddess herself....

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

Fleet Defender places you in the cockpit of a carrier-based fighter and politely suggests you try not to embarrass yourself in front of the entire navy. This flight sim balances ac...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

Action Soccer (1995, DOS) is what happens when you try to make a soccer game fun without worrying too much about realism, physics, or gravity. The ball bounces like it’s fill...

Astro Fire (1994) is the illegitimate love child of Asteroids and a particularly angry fireworks show. You pilot a tiny ship with a death wish through an endless barrage of asteroi...

Step into feudal Japan with Bushido, a game that tries to simulate samurai life on a machine barely capable of rendering a convincing circle. Still, there’s something charmin...

ASCII art has never been so morbid. Classic Hangman is exactly what it says on the tin: guess the word or watch your little stick figure meet a tragic end. Letters become lifelines...

Based on Anne McCaffrey’s novels, Dragonriders of Pern (1987) is an odd duck. It tries to blend diplomacy, strategy, and a dash of action into one package. You don’t ju...

Super Cauldron is a platforming game developed by Titus Interactive and released in 1993 for platforms like MS-DOS, Amiga, and Amstrad CPC. In the game, you play as a witch on...

In 1991, DOS gamers were treated to the weirdest parenting simulator ever: Baby Joe in: Going Home. You play as Baby Joe, an infant inexplicably left to crawl through caves, forest...

A detective adventure inspired by Agatha Christie’s collaborative story, The Scoop (1989, DOS) turns you into a newspaper reporter poking around a suspicious death with nothi...